"Stars and the Moon"

I do not listen to enough of any other music to choose anything but a Broadway song. I apologize. Lucky for you I was too lazy to show you all of the best love songs from The Great White Way. Then you would have had a real reason to be annoyed. After much deliberation (I am actually not kidding about that) I chose “Stars and the Moon” from “Songs for a New World” by my favorite Broadway composer, Jason Robert Brown. I still am not sure if I made the right choice. You see, it was mostly difficult for me because the music adds so much to the song that it was hard to separate the beauty of the lyrics from the beauty of the music. I kept going through songs that were breathtaking but with out the accompaniment, the lyrics sounded like a repetitive hallmark card. If you want to know what I mean take a look at “A Boy Like That/I Have a Love” from West Side Story, preferably the revival with Karen Olivo.

“Songs for a New World” was JRB’s first production. Rather than being a book musical (a musical where the music accompanies the plot), it is simply a compilation of vignette-like songs with no over arching theme. In one of the songs, a character sings, “I don’t like to philosophize, I just want to tell my story” and that is exactly what each song does. “Stars and the Moon” is the most well known song from the 1995 production, and remains today one of Brown’s most famous love songs.

That was the history. Here is the analysis. First the lyrics.

 

Here is 4 time tony award winner Audra McDonald singing the song. She is amazing. The cast recording is better--less operatic. I cannot find it.

Jessica
I met a man without a dollar to his name a
Who had no traits of any value but his smile b
I met a man who had no yearn or claim to fame a
Who was content to let life pass him for a while b
And I was sure that all I ever wanted c
Was a life like the movie stars led d
And he kissed me right here e
And said: d

"I'll give you stars and the moon and a soul to guide you
And a promise I'll never go
I'll give you hope to bring out all the life inside you
And the strength that will help you grow.
I'll give you truth and a future that's twenty times better
Than any Hollywood plot."
And I thought, "You know,
I'd rather have a yacht."

I met a man who lived his life out on the road
Who left a wife and kids in Portland on a whim
I met a man whose fire and passion always showed
Who asked if I could spare a week to ride with him
But I was sure that all I ever wanted
Was a life that was scripted and planned
And he said,
"But you don't understand -

"I'll give you stars and the moon and the open highway
And a river beneath your feet
I'll give you days full of dreams if you travel my way
And a summer you can't repeat.
I'll give you nights full of passion and days of adventure,
No strings, just warm summer rain."
And I thought, "You know,
I'd rather have champagne."

I met a man who had a fortune in the bank
Who had retired at age thirty, set for life.
I met a man and didn't know which stars to thank,
And then he asked one day if I would be his wife.
And I looked up, and all that I could think of
Was the life I had dreamt I would live
And I said to him:
"What will you give?"

"I'll give you cars and a townhouse in Turtle Bay
And a fur and a diamond ring
And we'll get married in Spain on my yacht today
And we'll honeymoon in Beijing.
And you'll meet stars at the parties I throw at my villas
In Nice and Paris in June."

And I thought, "Okay."
And I took a breath
And I got my yacht
And the years went by
And it never changed
And it never grew
And I never dreamed
And I woke one day
And I looked around
And I thought, "My God...

I'll never have the moon."

The singer of this song tells of her search for the perfect fairy tale love story. She encounters three men; a lover, a dreamer and a rich man. She chooses the safe “life [she] had dreamt she would live” with the rich man. However, throughout the course of her life she realizes that being rich isn’t what matters in life. The song mourns the loss of her potentially happy love filled life for a boring, monotonous, but rich life.  The repetition in the song is especially important. Each stanza either begins with “I met…” or “I’ll give you…” until the pattern is broken and the singer finally learns from her experiences. The repetition of “and” throughout the song shows just how much the singer want—she keeps wanting more, until in the last stanza she recognizes that she has been wanting the wrong things. With this realization the “ands” signify all that she has given up in return for the lifestyle she thought she had wanted. What I find most interesting about the song is that each of the first two men have definite faults—the first has no skills, and the second left his family—and yet after being with a man that had no faults she realized that he had nothing real to give her, while the other men did. The rhyme scheme, like the repittion, remained the same until the last stanza as well. All of this combines to represent the break in her beliefs when she changed her mind. For most of her life, represented by the first six stanzas, she believes that wealth is what will make her happy, despite having been offered otherworldly things like the “stars and the moon”. By the seventh stanza the repetition changes and the rhyme scheme breaks to represent how she came to realize that wealth is not everything—that in fact she would rather have the moon.